


Oh, Well, That's Different

by randomthunk



Category: Oxventure (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, have you considered two people being adorable and caring about each other, it's the hill I die on, this is absolutely the fluffiest thing possible, which is fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29393637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomthunk/pseuds/randomthunk
Summary: It might’ve been the cat activities that tipped off everyone else. They hadn’t been adventuring companions for all that long when Dob decided Merilwen as a cat was as good as a regular cat and would goof around with her. Did the wood elf kind of take advantage of the wild shape situation to be closer to the half-orc? She’d be lying if she said no. She just wanted to be around him, and doing that as a cat was the easiest way to do it. She didn’t have to talk when she was not herself.
Relationships: Dob/Merilwen (Oxventure)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	Oh, Well, That's Different

Looking back, it was _probably_ kind of a weird thing how close they were without actually crossing over that line. When it really came down to it, he was always the reliable one for her. He was always good at pulling her out of a scrape. He was always there to cheer her up, to strum her a tune on his lute, to be an ear to listen or to be a body she could jump on.

It might’ve been the cat activities that tipped off everyone else. It started early; they hadn’t been adventuring companions for all that long when Dob decided Merilwen as a cat was as good as a regular cat and would goof around with her. “ _Aw, guys, Merilwen is busy being adorable_ ,” Prudence had noted once, when the group was participating in All Crim’s Night in Red Castle. A small part of the druid took that to heart and hoped someone else felt the same. Did the wood elf kind of take advantage of the wild shape situation to be closer to the half-orc? She’d be lying if she said no. She just wanted to be around him, and doing that as a cat was the easiest way to do it. She didn’t have to talk when she was not herself.

He was her complete opposite in that regard. Dob was so quick on his feet; he was so charismatic and charming when he put his mind to it, and she, well, wasn’t. But he never used that to his advantage over her, oh no. He was too kind for that. He never teased her for stumbling on words or for drawing a blank in a conversation. He would just smile, and his smile was just too sweet for words, and she would feel her face burning, from her cheeks to the very tips of her ears. If he noticed, he never said anything, and she couldn’t even think he was being polite. Dob was, again, just not that kind of person. He was frightfully earnest in everything he did.

So there they were, hanging out again, late one night in Merilwen’s room at Necropolis on Sea. It was lightly raining outside, and Dob had come by to test out a song he’d been workshopping. The gentle _tapatapatapa_ on the windows from the rain set the tempo, and Merilwen lit a fire in the hearth to better provide him with some light to make notes. She had been meditating for a few hours when Dob came ‘round, and she was slightly embarrassed to find herself completely in the dark when she opened the door for him.

“What do you think?” Dob asked after one last dramatic strum. “Pretty tasty, right?”

Merilwen clapped quietly, smiling. “Lovely,” she answered before chuckling nervously. “But I’m afraid I can’t provide much help or critique.” 

“Oh, that’s just fine.” Dob leaned over his lute to scrawl something down on the parchment set on a dragged-over side table placed in front of him. “Being around you helps just as much as getting structural feedback. Maybe even more.”

She was so glad it wasn’t daytime, as the blush that seared into her cheeks would’ve been visible from miles away. “O-oh,” she said, trying her best to keep her voice steady. “I - I don’t know about that.”

“It’s true!” Dob set the quill down first, before gently propping his lute against the table and standing up. He stretched his arms out, groaning in the process. “ _Urgh_. You don’t think about how sitting makes you cramped and then _bam_ , one day, you’re older than you think.” He paused before looking at her, dashing his eyebrows up. “Well. Maybe. Is it the same for elves?”Merilwen cocked her head. “I guess it’s all relative. I need a good stretch after sitting for a while too.” To prove her point, she stood up and stretched her arms over head, a muffled squeak escaping her as her shoulders popped. “Oh.” 

Dob laughed. “Oh my. I heard that one.”

She giggled. “Yeah, it happens to elves too. Hey.”

“Hey?”

“If you want a bit more movement.” And without finishing the thought, Merilwen morphed into her cat form, shrugging into existence as the smaller being before leaping up onto her formerly occupied chair and meowing at Dob.

The bard grinned. “Okay, I see,” he chuckled, as Merilwen hopped to the side table and then up onto him, tip toeing on his broad half-orc shoulders. He got in one pat to her back before she leapt off, and that is when the chase was on.

She landed on the chair before jumping off again, Dob leaping around their little study set-up surrounding the hearth and stumbling after her. One of (maybe only) the nice things about Necropolis on Sea was that her room was spacious, larger for sure than her cabin on the Joyful Damnation and larger than anything she’d ever had growing up. It allowed her space for things she’d only dreamed of, like a fainting couch and not one but _two_ reading chairs, a wardrobe slowly collecting more clothes, and a vanity with a large mirror just for doing her hair. She thought about jumping to the top of the vanity but scratched that out, worried for the very real possibility that Dob would whiff it and run and break her mirror. If knowing the manor, that would just get more ghosts after them.

Continuing her sprint, she shimmed under the elaborate four poster bed in the center of the room before flying by the bookshelves along two of the walls, already filled when she moved in but housing a growing collection of her own. There was a tea set on a cart that she had taken from the kitchen, nestled in a corner which would normally be occupied by a few chairs and a table had they not been moved in front of the hearth. Admittedly having all those _things_ was a bit of a contradiction to how she was raised...but when else was she going to have a fainting couch?

It was strange that this place had become a home she had settled in, with her friends the adventurers. It was this thought that was distracting her as she leapt onto the tea cart and Dob caught her around the middle. 

“ _MEOWR!_ ”

“Ha!” he called out triumphantly, lifting her aloft and grinning. “Got’cha!” He was breathing heavier from his mad dash around the room. Merilwen wiggled in his hands as he turned her around to look at her face. “How’s about that?” He proceeded to turn her around again, lifting his arms above his head and loosening his grip so Merilwen could drop onto his shoulders. _“Yarr, pirate cat_ ,” he said, turning around to face the wider scope of her room again.

He was waiting for her to jump off, but gave her a pat when she didn’t. Dob absentmindedly stroked her fur as made his way back to the hearth. “Not feeling it?”

“ _Meow_ ,” was her reply. Merilwen stood up, extending her neck so her face was level with his cheek before rubbing her face against his. He stopped walking, casting his gaze on her.

“You okay?” he asked, slight confusion in his tone. He began to pet her side again. 

Merilwen liked being a cat. She didn’t have to use her words, and nobody expected her to, but she knew that wasn’t always going to work. She’d have to use words eventually, or be content with staying where she was. Where _they_ were. And she wasn’t sure why that night, of all nights, she was possessed with adrenaline, but she was, and that’s about all she could use to explain her actions next.

She hunched her back and propelled herself off Dob’s shoulders, landing to his side before jumping behind him. He attempted to turn quickly on his feet to follow her trail, but before he had firm footing, she leapt on him again, landing square in his chest as he had started to lean back in an attempt to avoid impact. 

Dob stumbled backwards at the movement, tripping over his feet and knocking into the bed at the center of the room while Merilwen scrabbled to climb up his chest. Her claws were tightly gripping his tunic, and she was glad he wore an undershirt because she knew otherwise she’d be getting skin. Soon enough Dob found safety by falling on his back on the bed, a cat tumbling into his face. He stared at her, surprised, his breaths quick and heavy, as the cat stared back.

Suddenly, and still kind of strangely, that cat was an elf again. And that elf was also kissing him.

All of Dob’s movements jammed to a halt in that moment. She wasn’t thinking of anything for a good few seconds, and she wasn’t sure if it was the lingering haze from being a cat, or her mind shielding herself from shrieking at her and asking, screaming, _what was she doing._

But soon enough, her senses kicked in. She lifted her head up, eyes wide, afraid of the unavoidable result that was to come.

“Oh,” was the first word out of Dob’s mouth. “Oh gosh.” Somehow, Merilwen’s eyes grew even wider.

“Oh no.”

He blinked. “Oh no?”

“...Yes, _oh no_.” It was amazing how quickly he could change her moods. “I - that was - that was-”

“- good.”

The rain tapping against the window filled the gap of silence before her eyes became like saucers again. He was such a pro at changing her moods. “ _Good?_ ” she whispered.

“Y-yeah.” He nodded, as much as was allowed in his current set-up. “Yeah,” he confirmed, even quieter. “Quite good.”

“ _Dob_ ,” she squeaked, her throat tightening. “Dob, please don’t do this to me right now.”

“Do what?” he asked in his painfully earnest voice. Tears began to burn behind her eyes.

“Please just - just don’t -”

And maybe it was because it was the only answer to this situation. It was certainly the fastest way. But whatever the reason was, Dob had craned his head up to reach her face and return the gesture. 

Merilwen thought she was going to die, which was quite impressive, as she had certainly been in that situation before in more realistic fashion. But when she felt his hand rest on the back of her hair, fingers curving around the shape of her neck, she decided that dying right here, in that moment, would not have been a bad thing at all. She would get over it.

“Oh dear,” she whispered when Dob pulled his head back, resting it on the quilt of the bed. He was smiling softly, a bright, earnest smile, but she had certainly seen it before. It was a look he had when he played on his lute, and more specifically, when he played something for her audience. “What do we do?

There was a pause. “We don’t tell the others.”

“Yeah.” She nodded, slowly at first, then quicker as a small, strange anxiety rose in her stomach. “Yeah, no, can’t do that.”

“I don’t know how long that’ll work.”

“Yeah but right now it works.”

Dob bobbed his head up and down a few times before she noticed his eyes - they weren’t looking right at her, but down just a little bit.

“Do-”  
“Do you mind-”  
“No.”

He leaned up and kissed her again, and she felt his other hand now rest on her back. Merilwen suddenly didn’t feel like dying anymore, as her fingers curled around his tunic in a repeat of the gesture she had been performing momentarily ago as a cat. This was good, actually. This was certainly not something to die over. The opposite, come to think of it.

But something was wrong. Merilwen lifted her head up and gasped.

“Are - are you crying?”

The half-orc opened his eyes, tears catching on his eyelashes. “Oh. Am I?” He blinked a few times before quietly sniffling. “Oh dear.” He smiled, but more tears spilled out. Merilwen panicked, pushing herself up and wiping the tears on one side away with her free hand. Dob caught her wrist and grinned, making her panic more.

“What is - are you - am I -”

“It’s fine it’s fine it’s fine,” he babbled, rolling his head to kiss her palm. For the third time in the last five minutes, the wood elf was convinced death had come for her. With the back of his other hand, Dob smudged the tears away she hadn’t removed. “S-sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I can’t imagine what you’re thinking right now.”

Merilwen shook her head. “Don’t worry about me, what’s going on with you?”

The half-orc laughed, and it was strangely genuine. “I don’t know, really,” he said, his eyes still wet and red from tears. “I don’t know. You make me so...happy.”

She tilted her head. “Happy?” she repeated.

“Yeah.” He looked to the side, finally getting to her level as she noticed his cheeks were flushed. It was a bit difficult to make out blushing in half-orcs but if she had finally cracked it, she’d be a happy woman indeed. “I guess it’s...I was….I was alone for a really long time.” He glanced back at her. “As in...I was alone longer than I ever actually lived with or around other people. And I got used to it...I thought.” He sniffled again and smiled at her resting her palm against his cheek, stroking his temple with her thumb. “That was a good lie to myself.”

Merilwen furrowed her brow. “I don’t think anybody likes it.” She thought of her friends, with their varying ranges of bravado, and shook her head. “Nobody here does, contrary to appearances. I think that’s why we all ended up finding each other.”

A smaller laugh escaped from Dob this time. “What a lot to fall into.” His toothy grin came back, small orc tusks and all. “And better yet, you were there too. What luck.”

“ _Oh my God_ ,” Merilwen squeaked, her face on fire, collapsing and burrowing her head into his collar. “ _Oh my God Dob,_ you can’t _say_ these things.”

She couldn’t see his face but by his tone she assumed he was pouting. “Why not?”

“ _Because!_ ” The wood elf lifted her head up, tears in her eyes, frowning. Now was her turn to cry for unknown reasons. “You - you just _can’t_ okay? People don’t say these things, who - who are you?”

His cheerful grin made her want to cry more. “I’m a wandering minstrel, m’lady.” She dropped her head into his collar again, sighing shakily. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and hugged her tightly. “Why are you crying?” he asked quietly, his mouth pressed against her hair and close to her ear.

“ _Why were_ **_you_ ** _crying?”_

“I don’t know. Emotions? I guess?”

Merilwen managed to inhale a breath without it turning into a shaky sob. “Then that’s why I’m crying too.”

“Oh. Well look at that.” Dob hugged her tighter. “What a pair we make.”

The rain outside and the crackling of the nearby hearth filled the silence as Merilwen curled her fingers tightly around his tunic, her tears drying into it. Dob stroked the hair resting on her neck, tucking his chin over her head. Neither of them said anything as the _tapatapatapa_ continued on.

\-----

“ _Why did you punch that old woman?!_ ”  
“She was _suspicious!_ And in 5 hours when she turns into a werewolf, _you’ll thank me_!”

Merilwen crossed her arms, puffing her cheeks in irritation. “And in the meantime we have to be stuck up _here_ , _thanks_ Corazon!”

The pirate threw his hands up. “What are you talking about, there’s so much to do up here!” He whipped his head around, hoping for an obvious boxed game like Brick Tower or Make Gold Not Friends. “....in one of these crates, of course!” He kneeled down to a chest, opening it and furiously throwing its contents around. “Avid gamers I’m sure.”

Merilwen growled, marching off to the other end of the attic and sitting down in a huff. She glared at Corazon, who was now occupied with stacking things on Egbert’s head, before releasing a sigh. What a waste of a day, being stuck up here. She scrunched tighter into herself while Dob took a seat next to her.

“Do you want to play Ye See Things?” he asked helpfully. She shook her head.

“I don’t want to be here,” she muttered, resting her head on her knees.

Dob nodded. “I could kick out the window and do a couple of backflips down, grab a laundry wire, ricochet off a few roofs and _bam_ , be on the ground.” He looked down at her. “And if you’re a cat you can come with me.”

She let a small smile come out. “That’ll just attract more attention, and I don’t know if we need that right now.”

“Mm, I guess.” He reached a hand behind her back and cupped her shoulder, pulling her closer to him in a side hug. Merilwen’s smile grew wider and, in one swift move, lifted her head up and gave him a peck on the cheek.

“Woah - what was that.”  
“What was what?”   
“That.”

Merilwen and Dob turned their heads in unison, only to see Corazon pointing warily at the two of them while a pile of books and hats slid off Egbert’s head. Merilwen swallowed hard.

“Nothing -”  
“A healing spell,” Dob sputtered out, flustered. She stared at him.  
“I don’t know any healing spells.”  
“Y-you don’t?”

“OH my GOD,” Corazon gasped, rescinding his hand and clenching it into a fist. “I can’t _believe_ \- what is this?!”

“It’s - _argh!_ ” Merilewn balled her hands into fists, pressing her knuckles against her forehead.

“So there IS something afoot!”

She glanced up, knowing she was blushing while trying to look annoyed. “Why do you care?!”

Corazon scoffed loudly. “I am your LEADER! I care about the well-being of the group!” He lowered his gaze, attempting to look commanding but with clear confusion behind his eyes. “S-so how long has this been going on?”

“How long indeed,” Prudence intervened. The other four all turned to her, reclining on a few strategically stacked boxes. She shrugged. “What? Nobody else saw it? I thought it was obvious.” She then looked across the attic at the pair and smirked. “You’re being adorable again.”

**Author's Note:**

> This has been an idea in my head for about a year now, but I could not figure out a way to put it into words - so I've been doing a lot of drawing instead. This was originally supposed to be in the other fic I'm working on right now but it quickly because obvious it didn't fit that structure, so it became its own thing instead.
> 
> I have a "multiple-choice beginning" thing for these two. This is one, and I won't be the person writing the other, but both options exist in my head. The "have you considered two people" tag I totally stole from my friend RubyCosmos. Thanks senpai, you're the best.
> 
> If you enjoy this then you may also like my art; find me on Instagram/Tumblr @randomthunk.


End file.
